Looks like the 150th anniversary of Gettysburg is not going to be defined completely by the powerful pull of reconciliation. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and others have requested that the state of Minnesota return the flag of the 28th Virginia Infantry which was captured on July 3. 1863 by a member of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. On July 2 the unit played a crucial role in stopping the Confederate assault against Cemetery Ridge. In the process it suffered an 80% casualty rate. On the following day the First Minnesota defended the Ridge against the Pickett-Pettigrew assault. It was during this final engagement that the Virginia flag was captured.

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton had this to say in response to McDonnell’s request:

“The third day of Gettysburg, the 47 Minnesotans that survived the day before, rejoined the battle and that was the day that they captured the flag of the regiment of Virginia… which resides in the Minnesota Historical Society to this day,” Dayton said. “The governor of Virginia earlier this year requested that the flag be loaned, quote, unquote, to Virginia to commemorate — it doesn’t quite strike me as something they would want to commemorate, but we declined that invitation.”

“It was taken in a battle at the cost of the blood of all these Minnesotans,” Dayton continued. “And I think it would be a sacrilege to return it to them. It was something that was earned through the incredible courage and valor men who gave their lives and risked their lived to obtain it. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s a closed subject.”

What do you think? Does Virginia have a claim to this flag? There is a tradition of returning captured flags as symbols of reunion and reconciliation. I don’t have a strong opinion either way. The flag is currently on display at the Minnesota Historical Society and is being properly preserved. The governor clearly has strong feelings about the subject, but I see nothing wrong with loaning the flag to the Virginia Historical Society if it decided to once again request the flag temporarily for an exhibit.

I haven’t heard much from the Southern Heritage/Flagger types out there. They have problems with the Virginia governor owing to his recent shift on Confederate Heritage Month. Many have been outspoken about the interpretive slant of the VHS and they certainly don’t approve of the Museum of the Confederacy, which is best positioned to be able to preserve and properly interpret the flag.

Nope, I guess it’s best to leave it in the capable hands of the MHS. They have as solid a claim to it as anyone and it’s probably safer there.

Wish I had thought of this: “As a gesture of reconciliation by Minnesota, that might be nice, but as a symbol of Virginia’s reconciliation with its African-American citizens — and a large number of others such as General George Thomas & General Winfield Scott who did not commit treason in the name of states “rights” — maybe Virginia should say we don’t want that symbol of rebellion back.”

Earlier today I returned from five days in Gettysburg for the annual Civil War Institute. Like last year, I feel rejuvenated and utterly exhausted. I had an incredible experience interacting with the participants and catching up with many good friends. Thanks to Peter Carmichael and the rest of the CWI staff for all the hard work. I can’t imagine the logistical juggling that takes place beforehand, but they seem to do it so effortlessly and that they do it in the name of history education makes it that much sweeter.

Horwitz’s interview with Fitz Brundage and David Goldfield raised the question of whether the Civil War was a good war and whether the bloodletting was worth it in the end. I tend to avoid these questions. That said, I find myself agreeing with the thrust of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s response.

The fact is that the Civil War didn’t represent a failure of 19th-century Americans, but that the American slave society — which was itself war — represented a failure of humanity. That failure was the price America paid for its conception…. I am very sorry that white people began experiencing great violence in 1860. But for some of us, war did not begin [in] 1860, but in 1660. The brutal culmination of that war may not have allowed us to ascend into a post-racial heaven. But here is something I always come back to: In 1859 legally selling someone’s five-year-old child was big business. In 1866, it was not. American Slavery was a system of perpetual existential violence. The idea that it could have been — or should have been — ended, after two and a half centuries of practice, with a handshake and an ice-cream social strikes me as really wrong.

I’ve always maintained that the right side won the war and that we are better off without slavery. Who is going to disagree with that? Was it worth the price? Certainly, those enslaved must have thought so along with those Americans who were not willing to stand by and allow their Union to be destroyed. What else can I offer that adds or detracts?

I suspect that many people in Gettysburg are horrified at the prospect of tens of hundreds of thousands of strangers descending on their peaceful town this summer. Not Daniel. He is going to make the best of it by heading out and meeting new people.

I am hoping to have a bit of time to take Carol Reardon’s and Tom Vossler’s new Gettysburg guide out for a test run next week at the CWI. The book is right up my alley given its emphasis both on what happened during the time of the battle as well as the many postwar battles over memory. Here is a taste of that approach in a series of videos that Reardon and Vossler recently did for CSPAN. First up is the North Carolina monument.

123rd New York Infantry & Culp’s Hill

24th Michigan (Iron Brigade)

Finally, here is David Thompson’s (Civil War Monitor magazine) interview with Allen Guelzo about his new Gettysburg book. This is a book that I recently finished and highly recommend. David was kind enough to give me the opportunity to ask a couple questions of Prof. Guelzo. I suggested he ask whether beliefs in American Exceptionalism have hampered our understanding of the battle and the war as a whole and whether it is fair to measure every new Gettysburg book with Coddington’s classic work.